REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES 
20 i 
portion as men feel themselves inclined to prefer ease to difficulty and 
freedom to constraint *. 
We will here exhibit an instance of the utility of those trivial names 
in a species of grass, which used to be called Gramen Xerampelinum , 
Miliacea , prcetenuis ramosaque sparsa panicula, sive Xerampelino congener, 
arvcnse, cestivum ; gramen minutissimo semme. Linn.® us expressed 
clearly and distinctly the name of this grass by the two words — Poa 
bulbosa , and rendered its description more intelligible than could be 
done by the whole foregoing string of descriptive names. 
44 Nothing could be more disgusting and more ridiculous,” says the 
philosopher of Geneva, « if a woman, or any of those men who are so 
44 much like them, asked the name of some herb or garden flower, than 
44 to throw up, by way of answer, a long train of latin words, which 
44 sounded like a conjuration of hobgoblins t.” 
By this amelioration of language, by the easy and pleasant method 
introduced by Linn^.us, the study of botany was uncommonly pro- 
moted and facilitated +. It got rid of the deterring appearances of an 
* See J. A. Murray Progr. duo : Vindicise Nominum Trivialium, Stirpibus a Linnao 
irapertitorum. Goetting. 17S1, odtavo. 
•}• Rien n’etoit plus maussade et plus ridicule, lorsqu’ une femme, ou quelqu’ un de ces 
hommes, qui leur ressemblent, demandoient le nom d’une herbe, ou d’une fleur de jardin, que 
la necessite de cracher en reponse, une longe tirade de mots Latins, qui ressembloient a des 
evocations magiqucs. — J . J. Rousseau’s Preface de /’ Edition de Botanique . 
t Condorcet, in his Panegyric on Linnaeus, expresses himself thus : “ Linn^us has 
n been reproached with having rendered too easy the nomenclature of botany, and occasioned 
“ thereby the appearance of a vast number'of small works. This objed'tion seems only to prove 
<< what progress botany has made under him. Nothing, perhaps, evinces better how far a 
“ science is advanced, than the facility of writing books of mediocrity on such a science, and the 
« difficulty of composing works which contain novelty of matter.” See Eloge de M. De 
“ Linne, in the f Hist tire de I'Academie Royale des Sciences. Paris t Zi, 74 pages in quarto. 
d d arduous 
